A hair transplantation procedure typically involves harvesting donor hair grafts from a donor area, for example the side and back fringe areas of a patient's scalp, and implanting them in a bald area, or recipient area, for example, frontal hairline. There are various existing methods of performing hair harvesting, including, for example, a strip harvesting and the follicular unit extraction (FUE). In a strip harvesting procedure, the donor tissue (such as a strip of scalp) is removed under local anesthesia, the wound is sutured back together, and this piece of scalp tissue is then cut under a microscope into small pieces of tissue called grafts which are subsequently transplanted back into the thinning or bald area. FUE involves harvesting follicular units (FUs), which are naturally occurring aggregates of one to four closely-spaced hair follicles. Hair transplantation is a highly repetitive, time consuming and tedious procedure that could last many hours (e.g. whole day). In addition to hair transplantation procedures performed using manual or hand-held devices, the development of an image-guided robotic system for follicular unit extraction and implantation has been proposed, for example, in the commonly-assigned U.S. Patent Publication No. 2007/0106306 to Bodduluri et al.
The Bodduluri et al. '306 publication discloses a robotic system for harvesting and/or implanting FUs having a robotic arm and a tool (e.g. harvesting cannula or punch) operatively attached to the robotic arm. A robotic arm is positioned relative to a patient, so that a targeted body surface (in this instance, the donor area on the back of a patient's scalp) is within reach of a harvesting or implanting tool. The robotic system may include one or more cameras, and a processor receives and processes the images acquired thereby. A controller operatively associated with the processor precisely maneuvers the robotic arm to position the tool at desired locations and in desired orientations, for example, relative to follicular units targeted for harvesting from the scalp or at the desired implantation locations and orientations.
Hair transplantation surgery begins with injections of local anesthesia into the donor area. Once the donor area is numb, the doctor begins by removing a donor strip (in a strip harvesting procedure) or by harvesting individual follicular units (in an FUE procedures). Donor strip removal takes about 45 minutes and then it takes 3-4 hours for technicians to cut the donor strip into individual hair grafts for implantation, while individual FU removal may take 2-5 hours or longer depending on the amount of hair grafts needed and whether the harvesting is automated or not. During the harvesting part of the procedure, the patient must be positioned face-down for long periods of time.
During the implanting site making and hair graft implanting part of the procedure, the patient sits facing up for multiple hours, typically in a reclining surgical chair, or in a semi supine position on a surgery table. Current procedures typically utilize conventional adjustable dental chairs, such as the Boyd Oral Surgery Chair available from Boyd Industries of Clearwater, Fla.
Because of the length of the harvesting and implant procedures and due to the difficulties for the patient to remain in a stationary position during long periods of time, the patient may require many breaks to relax stiff muscles. Some of the drawback of such breaks is that they make the procedure even longer, and the patient rarely sits in exactly the same position when the procedure resumes. In particular for robotically-assisted procedures which may rely on precise imaging systems, these patient readjustments may require recalibration of the instruments. Therefore, what is needed is an improved patient positioning system for use in hair transplantation which both increases patient comfort during long periods of remaining stationary and reduces interruptions.